That New Cardboard Smell

Atlanta weather in the winter is about as bipolar as it gets. Now, in the summer, it's very consistent -- between 85 and 95, a bit humid, sometimes some thunderstorms. But in the winter, well, it's all over the place. In December alone, it was 75 degrees on Christmas Day but then, on New Year's Eve, it was a high of 45 degrees. Today, it might not even break 32.

All of this has conspired to give me one heck of a cold. I could only wish that I could smell the cardboard of the cards that Tim from I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning. Tim sent me a packed mailer before Christmas, and it's taken me this long just to get it all scanned and sorted.  Let's break them down by player.

Ryan Braun

It's sort of funny that the Topps Ticket to Stardom set from 2009 called Braun a "Seasoned Veteran" considering that, in 2009, Braun had a grand total of 264 appearances in the major leagues. Of course, in those first two seasons, he hit 71 HRs, won the Rookie of the Year award, was named an All-Star, won a Silver Slugger Award, and led the NL in Slugging as a Rookie with a .634 SLG. 

Since then, of course, he's had his ups and downs but seems to have rebounded to the point where teams are considering trading for him -- I've heard everyone from the Dodgers, the Giants and the Phillies to the Orioles and Blue Jays being possible landing spots. 

While everyone in the national media seems to believe that Braun being traded is a fait accompli, there is a significant portion of the Brewers fanbase that believes that Braun has shown that he could still be a part of the next winning Brewers team. Now, that could be homerism, certainly. The team could be worse this year than last. We'll see.

Prince Fielder

Big Prince. Fielder had to retire after his second spinal fusion surgery. What was going on for him was that he had a herniated disk which led to pressure on his spinal cord. That pressure led to weakness in his left arm, causing him to be unable to swing a bat properly. Prince is lucky. As Kevin Mitchell detailed in his appearance on The Hall of Very Good Podcast, he was suffering from the same issue without it being diagnosed -- leading to him dropping down to 145 pounds and being paralyzed for a while. Seriously.

Prince is still owed about $104 million by the Tigers and Rangers through the 2020 season so money is not an issue. Aren't the guaranteed contracts in baseball great? I mean that seriously. The contracts are great for the players. Contrast that with the NFL, where far less money and far fewer years are ever guaranteed in what is a far more difficult, far less certain, far more violent sport in which to play. 

Ben Sheets

That Prime Patches Quad Relic Autograph 😍  😻  🙌  🙅

I just noticed that I can now add emojis to my blog. My life is now complete. 🎷 ⚾ ⚾ ⚾

Yovani Gallardo

Yovani just was traded to the Mariners by the Orioles. Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto was quoted as saying that, "after examining the free agent and trade market, Yovani is the best fit for our club as we move forward this offseason." Was their analysis of the free agent market limited to the California Penal League?

Seriously, Gallardo had a bad, bad season last year in Baltimore, and it should not have been a surprised. His strikeout rate has declined every year since 2013 at the same time that the league's strikeout rate has increased. Gallardo also hit the DL last year for shoulder problems. It does beg the question of what analysis that Dipoto and his staff did. Wishcasting?

Carlos Gomez

Lots of Golden Gomez here, with the highlight being the 1983 wannabe Gomez from 2015 Topps Archives being a parallel serial numbered to 50.  

Talk about a guy with a good agent and all the promise in the world: Gomez was absolutely terrible in Houston -- a terribleness that it always appeared he had in him, seeing as his idea of patience at the plate is to wait to start eating until after his dinner companions take their first bite. He got released by Houston, which slashing at .221/.277/.342 over the course of 126 games pretty much deserves. He gets signed by Texas and his 33 games there convince the Rangers to sign him for one year at a raise of $2.5 million a year -- to $11.5 million.

It is very telling that his most similar comparable player for his career (and #3 through age 30) is Corey Patterson. Patterson struggled to identify pitches he could hit, he did not walk much, he had good speed on the bases and was a good defensive player. Patterson also crashed out of the major leagues after the 2011 season at the age of 31 (though he spent 2012 essentially serving as Gomez's backup by being the starting CF for the Nashville Sounds in the Brewers organization). 

It should be an interesting year for Gomez.

For the rest of this post, I'm going to show off a few parallels and inserts that Tim sent:

Look at all the pretty colors! That Wes Helms Gold Refractor is actually a damn good looking card in hand, as is the sepia refractor for Aramis Ramirez. 

On the other hand, that "bubbles" thing going on for Nick Ramirez...not so much. Speaking of Nick Ramirez, it appears that his career is stalling out in Double-A. He's spent three seasons there, and he has not exactly lit the world on fire -- .229/.323/.402 in nearly 1400 Double-A at bats is an established level of play. I have my doubts that anything will come of his career at this point, but we will see. I mean, he turns 28 this year on August 1. 

There is one last card that I do need to show off:

I still like Luc, and this card being numbered out of ten floored me. I'd forgotten about that parallel for A&G in 2015 -- probably lost amidst the mist of parallels that Topps has put out generally. It happens.

Many thanks to Tim for the great cards -- and I hope that he enjoyed my Secret Santa envelope to him.

Thanks Again to Matt from BWTP!

It has to get boring to Matt from Bob Walk the Plank to read all the thanks and kudos and homilies about the cards that he douses all of us in the blog world with. I mean, is there a blogger out there who has made Matt aware of his/her presence that Matt has not sent cards to? 

It had been a while for me in getting cards from Matt. That's my fault, really, since I have been serving as opposing counsel to him in his war with JBF. It's also my fault because I let my supply of padded envelopes disappear, leaving me unable to get many things out in the mail to anyone. 

But I did get a little envelope recently from Matt. As always, it had some fantastic cards inside. I'm in a musical mood today -- perhaps it should be more sturm und drang than light and airy with the election tomorrow and all . . . I'm a bit scared for our future with the two candidates we have running, to be honest. But, I need a musical pick-me-up. So, let's turn to the music of West Virginians. 

Let's start with the most unusual of these artists:

Wilber Pan a/k/a Pan Weibo a/k/a Will Pan is a Taiwanese Mandopop singer-songwriter and rapper. Pan was born somewhere in West Virginia (according to his really messy Wikipedia page) but moved with his family to Taiwan at the age of seven. I say his Wikipedia page is messy because it contains the following sentence:  "He was offered an athletic scholarship in basketball by a NCAA Division III college, (which do not offer athletic scholarships) but chose to continue his education at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (aka Cal Poly Pomona) in the United States."

The thing is that the scholarship story came from a now dead link from a Chinese language website -- so there is absolutely no way to tell how right/wrong/mistranslated this "offer" may have been. He has won lots of Chinese language music awards, though, so he must be popular.

Jean Segura had a really good year this year for Arizona. Like many Brewers fans, I honestly believe that there is no way at all that Segura has the rebound year he had in Milwaukee. His time in town was marred by his son's death, and you have to think that he needed a change in scenery to help him through that grieving process. 

I mean, it's nowhere near the same, but my grieving process when I had to put my dog Clea down due to multiple health issues in 2010 was aided immensely by moving in with my now wife. It helped me not to go to the condo where Clea and I lived and find it empty. I can only imagine what it would be like with losing a child. 

Also, I'd bet that Segura feels more at home in Arizona with its much larger Hispanic/Latino population over what Milwaukee has. 

Who's next?

So, the former host of Hollywood Squares, Peter Marshall, somehow got himself inducted into the West Virginia Hall of Fame. This video is from March of 2016 for Peter's 90th birthday. Peter Marshall is really named Ralph Pierre LaCock, and he was born in Huntington, West Virginia. The above is a funny interview that Fred Willard did with Peter.

Marshall actually did make a number of appearances on Broadway and on London's West End in a number of musicals. In fact, Marshall appeared in the musical Bye Bye Birdie -- a satirical send-up of America's reaction to Elvis Presley -- for its entire 268 performance run.

Also, something I am sure I knew at some point in the past but I had forgotten: Peter's son is none other than former Chicago Cubs, Kansas City Royals, and Yokohama Taiyo Whales first baseman and outfielder Pete LaCock. I think Marshall is actually pointing out Pete in the audience at the beginning of this clip.

Another fine Jean Segura autograph gets added to my collection. If Segura had not been traded, he would have been fighting with Scooter Gennett for time at second base and with Jonathan Villar for time at short this past season -- at least until Orlando Arcia was called up in August. Segura spent most of his time at second for the D-Backs this year. Again, he had a great year -- 6th in the NL in WAR for position players, according to Baseball Reference -- but I don't think there is anyway that happens in Milwaukee.

Plus, Jonathan Villar is actually a year younger than Segura.

Hawkshaw Hawkins was also born in Huntington just five years earlier than Peter Marshall was. But Hawkins died a long time ago -- on March 5, 1963. The song here, "Lonesome 7-7203," was his only number 1 song, and it probably got there because of his untimely demise. 

Hawkins was in Kansas City with a group of artists doing a benefit concert for a DJ's family. One of the other artists, BIlly Walker, got a call and had to get back to Nashville, so Hawkins gave Walker his commercial airline ticket. Hawkins then hitched a ride back to Nashville with the other two artists, Cowboy Copas and Patsy Cline. After stopping to refuel in Dyersburg, Tennessee, the plane took off and hit bad weather about 20 minutes later. The plane crashed near Camden, about 90 miles from Nashville.

While this excellent card does not deserve such a morose introduction, well, someone had to get it. This is a 2015 Topps Tribute Green Relic card serial numbered to 150. These Topps higher end cards tend to get lost to me when it comes time to put team sets together. 

It's not like I see too many Tribute singles just laying around at the card shows I attend, and any relic serial numbered to 150 never comes terribly cheaply on eBay or any other outlet. It's a shame that there are so many of these types of cards around because it makes all of them less desirable. 

There is something to be said for scarcity of products just as much as there is scarcity of a particular card. If there are 6 different sets issued and each has 5 parallels serial numbered around 100, you're looking at 3000 "higher-end" cards available. People still expect a premium -- even if that is not really that scarce and even if the only reason this one is numbered to 150 and some other card with the same photo and a similar cloth swatch is numbered to 175 is that this one is green and the other one is blue.

Bill Withers was born in someplace called Slab Fork, West Virginia -- a place that apparently has 202 people in Raleigh County not very far from Beckley. Slab Fork is in the heart of coal country, and there are some incredible photos you can see when you look at the Google Image Search for it. 

Maybe it was this rural upbringing that led Withers to record his best known song -- "Lean On Me." I know a lot of children of the 1980s know this song for the Club Nouveau remake, but this version from Soul Train is just more soulful and seems almost more meaningful too. 

I went through Bill Withers's part of West Virginia back in 1993, when I had a summer job working for a guy who contracted with furniture companies to install furniture on institutional projects. My first ten days of working with him was spent at seven different state parks in West Virginia -- Bluestone, Babcock, Canaan Valley Resort, Lost River, Cacapon Resort, North Bend, and Tygart Lake.

It's a beautiful state, and this song really gives a feel for the kind of people that Bill Withers sang about. Yeah, there were a lot of mountain folk. Many of them were not well educated, and most of them had not spent much time outside of their hometowns (well, other than at Cacapon, which is about 2 hours from Washington, DC). Most of them worked hard, scratched out a living as best they could, and were as excited to meet someone not from their town as I was to be in West Virginia. 

Actually, they were far more excited than I was. But I was scratching out my own living.

Speaking of excited, how about these 2014 Brewers/2016 Texas Rangers? This is one of those framed cards that Topps has been doing with its flagship set, and it is serial numbered 17 of 20.

Word came out today that Carlos Gomez is apparently seeking a long-term deal -- up to five years in length -- as a free agent. Scott Boras, in his effort to sell ice to Eskimos, thinks that Gomez can get a big payday because Gomez is a "rare player" coming on the market. Boras is correct about that -- there aren't too many players who would think that they deserve a five-year contract just two months after getting released. As the Rangers website I linked to says, it's possible that Gomez could end up hanging out on the market for a while thanks to this type of talk.

Okay, last one:

Brad Paisley is 10 months younger than me, and he was born in Glen Dale, West Virginia, near Wheeling. My wife likes Brad Paisley a lot -- not as much as she likes Luke Bryan or Carrie Underwood, mind you, but she likes Brad Paisley. He has a number of hits, of course. I like this video and song for the world travel involved and for the point it makes -- that as much as he enjoys all the great stuff he has seen around the world, he still misses his home.

It's one of those songs that can make people wistful for wherever it is they live, come from, or wish they were.

A guy who understands a thing about Southern Comfort Zones is Jonathan Lucroy. He turned down a trade to Cleveland -- and what might have still been a trip to the World Series -- and instead got to go nearly home to Texas. Lucroy grew up in Florida, but really is a southerner despite that. I can totally understand that mindset too. While I enjoyed growing up in Wisconsin and enjoy getting back up there every once in a while to see family, the fact is that I'm much more of a southerner than a northerner -- 21 years in Georgia with 4 years in college in Tennessee will do that to a person.

As always, Matt, many thanks for the great cards. I'm sure most of these bands aren't really in your musical wheelhouse, but I hope you liked them just the same.

eBay, What you Wanna Do?

This weekend is a weird one for me. I have to go out of town for a business development industry group meeting, leaving tomorrow for Naples, Florida, and returning on Sunday. I almost never have to be gone from home over weekends for work or business development, so it is going to throw me off a bit I'm sure. 

Of course, I'm going to the beach on a weekend by myself. It's a rough life.

I've plucked a few cards and items here and there off eBay again recently. To celebrate, let's pluck a few strings on some 1970s guitar and get in that laid back beach mood.

The 1970s for college kids was a weird time. Apparently, Pure Prairie League's song "Amie" became popular on college campuses, especially in the Midwest, during what Wikipedia calls "a minor bluegrass revival." This song is what gave me my title for tonight's post. So, what card will it introduce?

I could stay with these 7/11 coins from 1984 a while -- maybe longer. My love for the oddball is well documented, and I greatly enjoy finding items like this to scratch the itch. Slowly but surely, I'm finding these coins for my collections. I've got two of the three Younts -- which I think are different literally only because of a single letter on their back. The Younts were released nationally, but the Molitor and Cooper are both from the "Central" issue. I now have two Coopers and one Molitor to go with my one Yount, and I am still looking for two Ted Simmons coins.

There are not many rock songs that feature a flute. You get Jethro Tull's stuff, of course, and then this Marshall Tucker Band song, and also Men At Work's "Down Under" -- but that's all I've got off the top of my head.

Another rarity -- at least for me -- is getting bonus cards in eBay packages. It seems a lot of other bloggers do a lot better than I do with this. Maybe they just buy more off eBay than me, but I rarely get bonus cards. This time, though, I did.



That's what makes that purple Bowman Carlos Gomez so cool to me. It is serial numbered out of 250, and the seller just threw it in with the Finest Black Refractor I bought for 99 cents (free shipping, I think) that it's pictured with. Just outstanding!

Only two more items, so two more laid back 70s Southern Rock songs.

For a while in the early 1990s and almost certainly influenced by the fact that I had moved to the South, I really got into the Allman Brothers Band for a while. It wasn't like I listened to them nonstop or anything, but whenever I was in a chill mood I wanted to hear stuff like this. Pop in the Allman Brothers Greatest Hits CD, and I'd be more laid back than Jimmy Buffett at 5 o'clock.

The opposite of laid back is this ridiculous Bowman's Best insert from last year. I actually found two of these pretty cheap from two different sellers at the same time, so I picked up my requisite "one each for the player collection and the team collection." Apparently, the mirror image here was that Braun had back-to-back 30-30 seasons in 2011 and 2012 in the majors, and Pederson went 30-30 in 2014. 

Is this racial profiling? I mean, is this one of those, "we can only compare Jewish players to other Jewish players" things? Or is it just a mere coincidence? 

Got me.

All this chill music gets me thinking about one of my favorite chill songs of all time.

It's not easy to be peaceful with all the political stuff going on. But I'm trying.

As a kid, I had a tremendous love for media guides. During a few years in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Brewers Media Guide actually was available for purchase at our local grocery store. As a huge Brewer fan, I would wear out that media guide. I memorized middle names of players -- Cecil Celester Cooper, James Elmer Gantner, Paul Leo Molitor, pitching coach Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish .... and the wonder of what Robin Yount's middle name was since he was only listed as "Robin R. Yount."

I did not realize that Robin featured on the front cover of the 1977 Media Guide until very, very recently -- and the minute I found out, I snapped up the least expensive copy I could find on eBay. It's in great shape, so I just got a good deal.

Going back in time is often a lot of fun. Nostalgia is great -- so long as we don't fetishize it too much and remember that the good old times weren't always so good. Often, they were just old. The 1977 Brewers sucked, but better times were ahead. I hope that's where we are going too.

Okay, Fine, Here's "Get Outta My Dreams (And Into My Car)"

A few months ago, I received a PWE from Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown. That is nothing out of the ordinary -- Gavin is great at sending out PWEs to people in the blog world, and his generosity is awesome. Knowing my predilection for blogging with music, though, Gavin became the first blogger -- and perhaps, to date, only blogger (note: Zippy Zappy wondering what he did wrong to get Nickelback does not count) -- to make a musical request for the cards he sent.

Gavin specifically requested Billy Ocean and Tears for Fears. I obliged, embedding "Caribbean Queen," "Shout," "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," "Loverboy," "Sowing the Seeds of Love," and "When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going" into that post. In the comments, he said, "Next tradepost, we need to work in "Get Out of My Dreams (And Into My Car)" somewhere."

Well, I forgot to do that the next time Gavin sent something. He even tried to set me up, giving me a little Chuck Carr sketch card to work it in. 

Yeah, not so much.

This time around, his hint was less subtle than Chuck Carr:

Thanks, Gavin -- sometimes, I need that obvious help to wake up and remember. I figured I'd lead off with the song so that he wouldn't miss it. So, here it is:

Wait, that's not Billy Ocean. That's Gwar!

Crap. Now I have to find Billy Ocean again.

As always, though, Gavin sent this PWE wrapped in his junk mail -- this time, for Proactiv. He personalized it, though, in a way that really made sense:

Of course, the girl with clear skin always roots for the Brewers. 

To thank Gavin for the cards he sent to me, I thought -- hey, how about I expand Gavin's collections around his hometown and his old schools even more by pointing out some potentially obvious additions that should be made?

Let start with a supercollection that he should start -- the Girl from Granite Hills collection.

Indeed, Gavin's been holding out or, else, he doesn't check Wikipedia as religiously as I do when I'm looking for ideas on themes for a post. Because when I read the entry for Granite Hills High School, I learned that "model" and "actress" Julia Schultz was a member of the class of 1997 from GHHS. 

Julia Schultz?

Julia Schultz. Well, she is Mrs. Brett Tomko (so there's your baseball angle), and she went to Gavin's high school. That card can be yours for just $2.99 plus $0.99 shipping! Act now!

In terms of her acting career, she appeared in the movie Tomcats, where she simulates fellatio on Jerry O'Connell (you can find it yourself if you Google her name and click on Videos....I'm going to stay away from linking to it, though). She was also in Rush Hour 2 as "Tex's Girlfriend". She appeared as herself in a few Playboy videos and on the Howard Stern show.

So, what can match up with the beauty of Julia Schultz?

Nothing, really. Maybe Stadium Club?

Gavin was kind enough to send me the three Brewers he got in his Stadium Club box that he opened from this year along with two from last year.

I am appreciative to Susan Lulgjuraj a/k/a Yanxchick a/k/a Sooz for picking a Ryan Braun photo that did not feature bulging eyes Braunie -- it is a nice change. 

As a few of us dissected on Twitter, that Yount photo came from the same photoshoot that spawned his 1992 Pinnacle "Sidelines" card of him riding his motocross bike.

Reed gets on cards this year thanks to making 6 trips to the plate last year in September at the age of 22. He's in Colorado Springs right now, and he appears to be whatever a three-true-outcomes guy is when that guy doesn't hit home runs. He's hit a total of 470 times in Triple-A over last year and this year, and he's slashing at .246/.366/.348. In other words, pitchers will just give him something to hit in the majors knowing he can't hurt them -- he's not going to hit for power.  He just won't -- he's hit a total of 15 homers in 2217 plate appearances. 

Okay, let's move on.

Next up on the list is a New York Times Best Selling Author K. Bromberg a/k/a Kristy Schilling Bromberg, who appears to have graduated from Granite Hills in 1994. 

Ms. Bromberg's books are described on Amazon as "novels that contain a mixture of sweet, emotional, a whole lot of sexy and a little bit of real." In other words, her books fall into that "50 Shades of Grey" genre without being fanfiction for Twilight. Oddly, her books are published both in English and German. 

Which reminds me of this:



Which reminds me of these:

Panini Prizm just never seem to look right, and it's not just the lack of logos. Well, that helps a great deal toward these cards not looking "right," but it is not the only reason. The other reason is the way they are presented -- guys floating in a silver space of nothingness. 

I envision the card designers at Panini saying to their computers, "just one background. Or one Logo. Either one. But, please, just one!"

Oh well. Sorry Gavin.

Two more here. These last two are Girls of Grossmont College rather than Granite Hills, but I think, for both of them, an exception can be made.

First, let's start with Stephanie Nicole Garcia-Colace. Y'all know her better by another name.

That's right -- Nikki Bella is a Girl of Grossmont College. She walked on to the soccer team at Grossmont, and later claimed that she was being recruited by a professional league in Italy. Instead, she and her sister acted some, modeled some, and then tried out for the WWE, signing with Florida Championship Wrestling back in June of 2007. More to the point and as that link above the photo shows, Nikki has 209 cards in the Trading Card Database currently. 

It's a natural collection to start, Gavin!

Perhaps it would be natural for me to start up a PC of one of the Brewers many prospects, such as Monte Harrison. I hate to say it, but I'm pretty risk averse in that regard -- I want these guys to make the majors and then do something before I commit. The last time I fell for that "hot young player" schtick, I got a Jean Segura right upside my head (although thanks must go out to the Diamondbacks for giving the Brewers 20-year-old Isan Diaz, who is playing very well in the Midwest League this year). 

And, finally...

There is one final "Girl of Grossmont College" that Gavin should consider collecting. 

That would be the lovely and talented Rachel Bilson. Yes, she only has two cards available currently according to Trading Card Database (both from the 2008 PopCardz set), but she is a fairly well-known TV and movie actress. I'd argue that more people know who she is than anyone else on this page. 

Only one card that Gavin sent could go with this:

It's the amber parallel of the 2013 Topps Triple Threads card of Robin Yount, serial numbered 70 out of 125. There's no other way to end this great PWE from Gavin than with this card.

Gavin, you win. Here's the real version for you.

Thank you for the great cards, and maybe I've inspired you to start a Nikki Bella collection!